people talk about charming at higher levels, that is no longer melee. bard melee capability drops off severely the same level as all other melee classes - with the exception of fear kiting.
in this regard, bard is the better choice over SK because they dont need to meditate to cast snare / fear.
when it comes to pure melee though, standing toe to toe - a bard twisting all their powerful songs at level 40 could not do the same type of damage that a warrior or monk could do, because they lack double attack. they also lack the defensive skills that monk and warrior have, so would take more damage. they could recover alot easier and quicker with healing songs, but the fights will go faster if youre meleeing with a "fighter" class like rogue, warrior, monk or even ranger - these classes all get double attack, and get WAYYYY higher defensive skills than bard (whos riposte caps at 75, dodge caps at 155, parry caps at 185 - compared to ranger, the worst defensive abilities of all melee with 185 cap riposte, 170 cap dodge, and 220 cap on parry)
bard has better ways of controlling adds, slowing, snaring, fearing, etc. but they are most certainly not a "fighter" class.
soloability, bard has it way better than all the other melee - but again - bard is not a "true" melee character. gonna beat the dead horse here and say that double attack and parry/block, dodge and riposte is what separates melee from the rest. WAR MNK ROG SHD PAL RNG <--- "True" melees with double attack and higher defensive capabilities
Bard arent typically considered a fighter or melee in something like DnD, they arent in many other games that have them as playable characters. parse a raid log, and have the bards doing melee attacks. i bet theyre <50% damage of the worst rogue on the raid.
you CAN melee on a bard, and thats why EQ is great. you can also melee on a shaman - shit i levelled 3 shaman and slow tanked while meleeing until level 46-49 on all 3. but i wouldnt say shaman is the best solo melee class.
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